I have added a new post to my photography blog at http://rwigleyphotography.wordpress.com
You should swing over there, take a look at what I posted and leave feedback. It’s greatly appreciated.
I ventured into the world of HDR photography today, and I have to say I’m really proud of myself and my first try ever.

I can’t tell you how bad it hurts to only be a convenience in certain people’s lives. It sometimes kills your inner-being just knowing how much you long or yearn for their company even though I know that it can never be the same. Each time I only allow myself to be let down even more when I do see or hear from them. But then my gut sinks when I realize that all I ever was-was just a convenience at the time. How unfair is that? Whatever happened to humans being treated with dignity and grace? This definitely isn’t what I have in mind when I think of those two words. How much can one actually take from a specific person before they succumb to their mortal ways? God I hope I never treat anyone like that. I could never imagine, and Lord if I have, I apologize in every way.

“Every convenience brings it’s own inconveniences along with it.” –Proverb

I guess what I’m trying to say is the only thing I’ve ever been great at is being this persons convenience but mostly their biggest inconvenience. How’s that for a self-esteem booster? Sucks.

So as I find my life changing in more ways than one, I also find my soul taking on new meanings. For so long I’ve always been too afraid, too scared, or cared too much about what other’s have thought or think. I’ve taken myself too seriously for the better half of my life and in a sense left behind a sort of innocence that I miss and set out to regain. A sort of innocence that everyone should have and never lose.

"Life is what is happening when you are making plans." Although I have no plans, nor have ever really made any in this life I do think that growing accustomed to everyday life or "everyday rituals" is "making plans." Everyday you follow the same schedule expecting to not have any disruptions. Well I’ve finally learned that although as often as you think something is "untouchable" as 16 years have proven, even that has been left to question.

From here on out I am taking on a new meaning to my everyday life. Living my life in the sense of a gypsy, a "free spirit," or that of a nonconformist. I’m promising to never take myself too seriously, attach myself to material things, to be let down by expectations I make for other’s to live up to, or try to live up to other’s expectations they make for me. I want to be the mystery in the room and for once, I’m living for me and dreaming for me. A wise person once said, "those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind."

Living life with no boundaries (only those of God’s) is essentially a new beginning for me. Positively a rebirth. Ultimately it will take baby steps relearning everything I have scrutinized with a fine-toothed comb, but mostly my life will feel more whole than it ever has before. I plan to take more of everything out of even the smallest situations and putting a positive inspiration on everything. I want to be profound and live profoundly.

"I want to fly, spread my wings and leave the past behind. There’s a life for me that I want to find and I’m strong enough to be myself this time. I want to leave and not look back, I want to laugh and love and dance. I don’t want to miss another chance, to find me." – "Find Me" by Diana Degarmo.

7,665 days, 183, 960 hours, 11,037,600 minutes, or 662,256,000 seconds; in case you were wondering, it all means 21 years. As I pause to reflect over the past year, I find myself consumed with many emotions. While some are greater than others, all are important fulfillments of the last 364 days of my trip around the sun. So many things have changed, arrived, departed, withered away, began –. In part, I find it humbling to reflect on an unbelievably, powerful thing called life. Life that began exactly 21 years ago today, down to the exact minute my mother gave birth to me; the exact minute of arrival for her last, and only baby girl: 2:10 p.m., November 6, 1987. Humility embraced that day in 1987 with the hands of a fortunate mother, and, into the present (2008), it flows within the veins of her daughter.

Despite residual rotation, this year has flown by like no other. Maybe it’s the time-old-tale that I’m getting older? Whatever it may be, I’m anxiously looking forward to the next 365 days of my life. Wait, no. I’m anxiously looking forward to the next days of my life. The days of my life that God grant me, whatever they may be. With age, wisdom follows: wisdom of growth, knowledge, change, truth, and experience. Wisdom of change that follows truth, experience that allows knowledge and growth that oversees all wisdom. No matter how many birthdays, trips around the sun, or hours passed, wisdom is ever-changing.

With life grows nurture and it’s amazing to see what each moment brings. This past year has been a whirlwind. I’ve picked myself up from the lowest point in life and rebuilt my foundation restored my foundation. Rebuild would mean to remove the old and restore with the new. My past has taught me a lot about myself, things that went unforeseen before. With nurture grows attachment and provides us with the security of our being. It starts in the womb with the mother and child and spans across life as our mother’s constantly face new challenges into letting us go, letting us grow up, molding into who we’ll become. We seek out to attach ourselves to things like us, as security. We form bonds, friendships, sisterhoods, relationships, faith, religion, and dreams. It’s attachment that leads us to long for something more — something that will always, always be with us.

Everyone asks how it feels to be legal; honestly, it feels the same as it did yesterday, the same as it did when I turned 18, and most of the days before that. I think the first "defining moment" in our history is graduating high school. It’s the true test that defines us first, the 13 year responsibility that we overcome, and it’s our first taste of freedom. Age is a number, and responsibility increases with each year that passes. If you think back to the timeline of your life you find that from age 1-18 your life is consumed by more firsts than ever at 21. Birth – You learn touch and feel, textures, attachment, cooing, reflexes, rolling over, crawling, holding your head up, Age 1 – Solid Foods and walking, Age 2 – More teeth, better food, first words, potty training, Age 3 – Learning shapes, colors, alphabet, numbers, Age 4 – Pre-school, Age 5 – Kindergarten & Tying shoes, Age 6 – Losing your first tooth, your 6 year molars, Age 7 – Start of sports and developing "self-image," Age 8 – we get the "big kid" scissors, Age 9 – you realize what losing a grandparent really is like, Age 10 – you get your first period and feel like a mutant, Age 11 – puberty is still a consistent role this year, Age 12 – You "father" tells your mom that he wants a divorce, Age 13 – you’re a pre-teen, nothing spectacular truly happens, just more school work and middle school sports, Age 14 – Your last year of middle school, you’re off to the big leagues now, Age 15 – Freshman year, you get your learner’s permit to start driving, Age 16 – You’ve been training all year for this, you get your driver’s license, take driver’s ed., your first relationship and (for some) your first job, Age 17 – You survived Sophomore Year Slump, Junior Prom, High School Graduation Tests, ACT’s, SAT’s, finally only one more year until you’re a Senior, Age 18 – You’re finally a senior, you get to take senior pictures, senior night, football games, bonfires, senior superlatives, senioritis, (for some) choosing colleges, senior prom, graduation practice, graduation picnic, and finally graduation. You get to register to vote, obtain a class C license and the midnight curfew is lifted. Age 19-20 – College work, Harder Professors, Real life, bills, leaving home, Age 21 – Buying alcohol.

It’s funny–Even through the farthest distances of vast space, the multitude of hours ticked away, and the seamless transitions of life, chemistry never changes. The harshest words, the unacceptable notions, and the vast conformity can’t keep fate from enduring what God has planned. Chemistry stands for compassion and love; besides God, Love is the only thing that remains the same.

Embrace change, defy odds. My new motto. November 4th marked another "defining moment" in history and all of our lives. A landslide brought on the closing of polls for the election. Some people were shocked while others were disappointed. Others were happy to see the change: the motto, "yes we can!" Everybody can use a little bit of "yes we can!" Defy odds, prove statistics wrong. Embrace change, embrace your dreams; overcome everything; be the landslide everyone talks about, make history. Be cultured, have culture, and be blessed.

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.